The Unexpected Vampire
by maroongrad
Summary: They return from Romania with Dracula in restraints...and an unexpected extra vampire. Story is done in three chapters. Thanks to all the reviewers for Ch1, it's what spurred me to finish it today!
1. Chapter 1

*I just re-read a story by hats and clogs that mentioned Quincy, and this arrived. I hope to finish it, but, well, I also hope to catch up on two stories I'm trying to beta and a friend's book (Eyes of Osiris)! and a whole pile of awesome reviews I need to respond to. That, to me, takes precedence. But I do hope you enjoy this!*

Abraham was entirely unsure what to make of this. It went against everything he knew about vampires, but...there it was, nevertheless.

The two vampires were curled up, the larger wrapped almost completely around the only-slightly-smaller one, clearly protective even in the depths of sleep. The thick blankets draped over them revealed only a sliver of Dracula's face, but the eyelashes fell across the beast's cheek as it slept. The only sign that there was a second vampire there, and not some oddly-shaped package hidden under that blanket, was the touseled hair peeking from the shadows under Dracula's chin.

They'd been amazingly quiet. Quincy was still in a state of shock over his change, amenable and confused and vague, easy enough to shackle to the sides of the sturdy wagon. Dracula should have been far more of a handful, but...he'd been nearly as compliant as Quincy. Badly weakened from the stakes, surrounded by angry humans with silver bullets, crucifixes, and more stakes, the creature had clearly chosen discretion and obedience as the wisest choice, for now. Unless and until he perceived some threat towards Quincy... Mina and Johnathan had been quietly discussing the situation during the day, everyone having assumed that vampires both slept. Johnathan had wondered if it might not be best to "release" Quincy in an attempt to save the man's soul.

Dracula's jaws had snapped shut bare inches from his neck, and had Mina not thrust a crucifix in front of the vampire, Abraham had little doubt that Dracula would have succeeded. Until Johnathan had taken a horse and ridden out ahead of them, flaming red eyes had tracked his every move, promising death. With the disappearance of Johnathan up the narrow and rutted trail, Dracula had finally rejoined his offspring, curling quietly under the blankets that protected them from the weak winter sun.

Offspring. And how had THAT happened? Well, they knew HOW it had happened...but...Quincy was by no means virginal, not after all the traveling and the tales Arthur had shared of his escapades. Nor was he a female. Yet, there he was, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, clearly under the watchful eyes of the elder vampire.

xx xx xx

It had been quite a battle, destroying Dracula. During the battle, Quincy had been shot by one of the Romani. Ignored briefly while the others battled to stake the vampire, kill him before he could awaken, Quincy had been given the precious time needed to not only die, but begin to slip into Undeath without anyone's notice.

Dracula had only had the one chance at the man, far back in England, but the one chance had been enough. Quincy had certainly shot at the great bat that he saw outside...but not before that great bat had taken a moment to mesmerize him and take a taste of his blood. Take it, and apparently give the man a taste of his own. Quincy's memory of the event had returned with his change, and though groggy and confused, he'd been able to tell them of the blood he had taken. And it had had all those weeks to work its way through Quincy's system, preparing him.

When the blanket containing the man's dead body had begun to stir that night, his confused cries alerting them, they'd at first thought it a miracle until the teeth had flashed at them as he spoke. No human had canines that sharp, that long...and no human could heal a bullet wound to invisibility in less than half a day. Quincy had died, replaced by some sort of monster, and Abraham himself had raised a gun to the confused and bewildered new vampire to destroy it.

The ripping snarl from the dark around their campfire stopped him, causing him and the others to turn from Quincy and look for the greater threat that now hunted them. A moment of silence, and Abraham had turned back to Quincy...to find Dracula holding him protectively. A very battered, thin, bloody, and exhausted Dracula, but glaring at him with a clear determination to protect the American he held close to his side.

Tired and exhausted, but coherent and logical. Dracula could barely stand, it had taken almost all he had to distract them and reach his child, and fighting them was out of the question. Yet he'd been desperate to protect his child, bargaining with them. They could have fought him down, destroyed him, destroyed Quincy...but he made it plain that he intended to take at least one of them with him if they did so. And so instead they chained the vampires with makeshift restraints cobbled together from extra harness and what they could scrounge from the Romani wagon. Quincy had been too tired and disoriented to protest, and as long as they treated his child gently, Dracula offered no resistance.

Two vampires. Two, riding in chains that could never hold either if they began to recover, only a few feet from him as they rolled and jounced down the road back toward civilzation. Dracula's coffin sat behind him, but Dracula was barred from it...the beast would be given no chance to recover. How it had pulled itself back together, had removed the stake, was a mystery. Any other vampire would have succumbed to the damage. HE should have! And instead, there he was, fiercely protective and oddly gentle with his (male?!) offspring, very much still undead.

x x xx

Johnathan had gone into the small town to find an inn of some kind able to take them in. Only after he'd made the arrangements did Abraham bring the wagon into the town, quickly moving it into the ramshackle stable before anyone would look too closely at its inhabitants. The Harkers were sent to find a blacksmith; better restraints were needed. Silver was out of the question, but perhaps iron with a cross imprinted on them would work, and a priest's blessing and a bathing in holy water would create shackles strong enough to hold the beasts. Arthur and Seward were sent to the undertaker's, a standard feature of all towns though this one also served as the local carpenter in such a small village.

Tired though Dracula was, he'd been insistent that his child have a coffin, and soon, nearly becoming violent when Abraham had initially resisted.

"He is new, he has not fed, he has barely healed. A child should be well-fed by its maker during the change, he starved through his. If you want him alive, and thus yourselves alive, for more than another day, you'll find him a suitable coffin!" The vampire practically snarled this at him; the proud beast would not beg, but it WOULD see its child cared for!

And so a coffin was being obtained. Soil had been harvested from the site where Quincy had fallen, suitable to maintain him, carried in the wagon alongside the battered black coffin of his Sire. Tonight, Quincy would find a coffin and soil waiting for him. Chilling, that the vibrant American of two days ago was now a grave-dwelling monster of the night.


	2. Chapter 2

(I'm thinking one more chapter ought to do it. Thanks for the reviews and support!)

With the fall of night, the two monsters stirred. Abraham was relieved to see that they both still looked as battered and exhausted as before, still weak, still containable. Even so, he was very glad when the Harkers clattered in, heavy manacles in their hands. Expensive manacles; made more so when the blacksmith had to be bribed not to speak of making them. The wilds of Romania were quite superstitious enough to put a few facts together and deduce vampire.

Quincy was confused, pulling back from them, looking questioningly up at Dracula when Abraham demanded that he hold out his hands. Dracula looked angry...and then Seward, bless him, audibly cocked the pistol he held. Abraham didn't miss the slight tightening of Dracula's arm around Quincy, but with a huff the vampire accepted the requirement.

"Cooperate." The inaudible "for now" was not missed by any of them, and there was a brief holding of breath. Quincy obediently held out his arms, though they shook with weakness, and his puzzled and hurt human-looking expression brought guilt out in all of them. It was a monster playing at humanity, but it wore the face of their old and trusted friend and it played the game well. Dracula, too, held out his arms obediently and calmly but there was the faintest unending growl coming from him the entire time.

"Vampires, we need to rest. Quincy, you have a coffin coming shortly. We'll be guarding you the entire night, don't think you'll have a chance to escape us, but we're staying here at least through noon tomorrow."

And rest they would, though in shifts, with two always on duty. Soon enough Arthur's voice was heard outside in the muddy inn courtyard, directing the driver of a pony cart to the stable. Abraham didn't miss how Dracula shifted slightly, interposing his own form between his offspring and the stable door, nor the subtle tenseness of his body. The damn monster could barely walk, but he had to give it credit for some very strong protective instincts.

Seward left the stable, there was a low rumble of voices and the chinking sound of coins, the rasp of something heavy and wooden, and then Seward and Arthur stumbled inside, a raw wooden coffin stretched between them.

"Keep back." The two vampires obediently shifted slightly, pressing up against the wagon's side as the coffin slid in beside them. With the two coffins and two unwilling captives, there wasn't much room left in the wagon, but it didn't last long. Dracula gently urged Quincy towards the coffin, and though the American gave it a look mixing wide-eyed disgust and creeping horror, he settled inside with a minimum of resistance. With some difficulty the elder vampire shifted the heavy bag of grave dirt towards the new coffin, panting with exertion as he heaved it inside and then pulled the lid as close to closed as possible with the chains stretching from Quincy to the wagon's side.

Dracula peered inside, and a small smile flashed across the beast's face, a sort of smug pleasure and relief.

"Is there anything else he needs?" Abraham's curt question pulled the odd expression from the vampire's face and Dracula faced him, spitting slightly in anger.

"Other than food and freedom? Oh, no, he's perfectly fine, just starved and held prisoner by his friends. Who threatened to kill him, no less." Eyes glowing in a banked rage, the vampire turned his back to Abraham, wrapping up in the blanket again and leaning against his offspring's coffin, blatantly ending the conversation.

Food...well, he wasn't about to toss them a person to murder. He still wasn't certain how he was going to keep either of them fed, but perhaps some sort of solution would come while he slept. Convicts on their way to the hangman, perhaps, but the meals would be few and far between even so.

Ah well. Dracula appeared exhausted, face haggard and lined, body thin and weak. And no wonder; he'd been awake for hours during the day, watching them suspiciously. Not to mention his unsuccessful attack on poor Johnathan Harker! Carefully moving quietly alongside the wagon, Abraham peered inside, seeing Quincy asleep and looking almost blissful, despite the starved appearance and the eyes framed with deep bags and lines. Dracula shifted slightly, eyes cracking open to watch him carefully, then closing again as soon as he moved away.

"We should let them rest, too." Abraham gathered the others around the stable door. "Johnathan, you've got rooms for us?"

"If you can call them that. I'd take the bedrolls up myself, I don't trust those mattresses not to be alive. But they are warm, and quiet. One is the corner room, larger, and the small room next to it is ours as well. There are only two other rooms, and neither is occupied. There's a stew of sorts downstairs; I didn't ask what was in it, but it does smell appetizing."

"Excellent. I'll take the first watch, will you join me, Arthur?" At his nod, the pair of men settled on a pile of loose hay, legs stretched out comfortably, weapons close at hand. The rest of the small group pulled bedrolls from saddles and under the wagon seat, and trudged off to the inn. Time ticked past, neither vampire so much as shifting, the only noise the faint rustle of mice and occasional shifting of horses. The arrival of Mina with a pair of full stew bowls and her husband with two great steins of watered beer were welcomed...but then time continued its slow drag onwards.

It was with a sense of relief from the sheer boredom that they welcomed the other three at midnight, and went to their own beds.

x xx xx x

He'd drowsed on and off, but with his offspring so vulnerable and himself so weakened, Dracula had never let himself fall into any sort of deep sleep. And now, with Johnathan present and so close to Quincy, he wouldn't even be drowsing. Resting, yes...but listening and alert the entire time.

Quincy...he felt a pang of guilt at this, an unusual situation. This had not been supposed to happen. He had expected to simply pull himself together, hunt (though he'd be forced to be slow and careful, humans were still easy prey), and then return to his old home and avoid England! It had been with a sense of horror and sudden stab of fear for the American that he'd woken and realized that there was another vampire present...and it was his.

He knew he was powerful, and becoming more so with each passing decade. He'd long ago ceased to require a virgin to successfully transform a woman, though it certainly made the process easier and more likely to succeed. Quincy was no virgin, but that wasn't the problem...it was that he was a male! A puzzle. Had he simply reached a level of power where he could change a male? Well, the man slept, he wasn't about to wake him and ask questions. Quincy was exhausted, and while the young vampire might not recover any energy, the rest would still leave him more alert and sensible. Dracula didn't have the energy to pull all he wanted to know from his offspring's mind, but skimming the surface thoughts as the vampire dreamed was easy enough and took almost no effort at all.

Well. Well and well. He'd found answers, after all. The man was trapped in a nightmare of his own death, not unusual for the newly-changed, and the dream was an iron dream of hardness and strength and unyielding determination not to die. Quincy had fought his death with every bit as much energy as Dracula had fought his mortal death. The will to live was as important as any other factor in making a successful transition, and the man's will was simply incredible. And...something else, as he watched the dreams tumble about. Mostly nonsensical, but glimpses and reactions and bits of nostalgia combined to create a very different man from the outward appearance of brave masculinity Quincy presented.

Brave, yes, no doubts of that. Strong, and protective of his friends, and willing to sacrifice himself, too...astonishing, that, to find it alongside that incredible drive to live. But...more. Sensations, reactions more appropriate to a female, from a flash of deep envy at the beautiful peacock-like gown of a noblewoman to the well-hidden desire for a gleaming pearl necklace to adorn himself. Quincy's male responses were certainly there, lust at a flash of female leg, the fierce joy of a bar fight, but there was an unexpected "extra" to the man as well.

A terrible compilation of errors resulting in a baby vampire he could scarcely protect or guide. He'd only wanted a bit of control over the man, a little less uncertainty about what Van Helsing was plotting. His bond with Mina was far stronger, but if he'd paid any attention to what he'd forced on Quincy, Dracula had to admit he'd likely have escaped, not been stuck in chains in a reeking stable in his own domain! But he'd given the man his blood, and then ignored him. The man's will to live and the strongly feminine aspect of Quincy's personality had combined with that...and now his offspring, starved and confused and weak, rested beside him.

And now that offspring was waking.


	3. Chapter 3

Done! The writing took on a very different style than I usually write. Lots of conversation, very much first-person and active tense, and Dracula is a bit "softer" than I'd like to have him. Make no mistake, he's an evil bastard...but his weakness is his offspring, and Quincy will see a very different side of him!

-v-v-

He was waking, the humans were nearly asleep. I could hear their slow heartbeats, the steadily deepening breaths. It was very late for them, very dark, very quiet. Excellent...I could talk to Quincy, teach him what I could, without interference.

"Wake, but stay in your coffin and remain very quiet." My voice might have been audible to the nearest horse, but human ears would have heard little to nothing. Quincy's vampiric ears had no difficulty and I noticed with pride how quickly he understood and obeyed. Tired and starved and confused, he'd still kept his wits about. "I don't trust them, and neither should you, but we need to speak. This was...unexpected...for us both, and thanks to that ass Van Helsing, you're undoubtedly full of lies about vampires. Keep your voice very very low, and we should be able to do so in peace and privacy."

Dazed eyes blinked at me but quickly sharpened. Intelligent, aware of his weaknesses, Quincy didn't so much as twitch a muscle or waste a single scrap of energy. Male he might be, and an accident, but he was nevertheless a fine specimen and I was proud of him. "What am I?

Or not so proud. He was a vampire, of course, and I told him so.

"But...I'm not a monster. I'm...me." Ah, the silly man. Time to explain a few basics.

"Van Helsing is at best ill-informed. I'm a monster, and I was one long before I died." A sharp grin with a trace of vicious insanity reinforced this, and it was with a little bit of vicious glee that I saw Quincy's eyes widen in slight fear. But this was my offspring, and my child should never, ever fear me. "Relax...you are my child. I won't harm you, and anyone that attempts to will have to deal with me first. Right now, that would be Mr. Harker." A growl, there, unintentional and nearly audible. I needed more control or they'd hear us! "Van Helsing only learns of vampires that hunt humans, that murder and kill and feast and prey. Vampires such as myself." A grin at that...I had no illusions that I was a human, or that the weak and foolish creatures were anything near my equal. They were dumb animals, there for the eating. "There are quite a few vampires, a majority in fact, that live quiet lives and never come to the attention of anyone that might attempt to hunt them. I suspect you'll be one of that kind."

"Do I have to bite humans, drink human blood?" Earnest and sad eyes stared up at me. Yes, this was almost always the first question a child asked me, and I knew well how to answer it.

"Unless you wish to die a second, miserable death, yes. Animal blood can sustain you briefly in an emergency but your true food is the blood of humans. You do not have to kill them, or change them, or even attack them. One of your new skills, and one that I suggest you hone as quickly as possible, is the ability to seduce them, calm them." A sigh...this was far too upright and moral a man for that, at least for now. That would change with age and experience. No real problem, he was not the first to cling to vestiges of human morals. "For some vampires, they simply form friendships, using this ability to remove fear. A gentle nip and a few sips of blood each night will sustain you. Cultivate human friends, a wide circle of them, treat them well, and make certain they are not afraid of you...and you have a ready meal whenever you want." Humans as friends...bah. Well, he was young, scarcely changed from a human himself, and such a path had made many of my daughters and grandsons content.

"Bite too deep, or give them any of your blood, and you risk making a ghoul or another vampire. Really, YOU should have ghouled...you are an exceptional child, Quincy, very exceptional." Exceptional and odd...if possible, I wished to ask him about his odd feminity, but time did not permit. I needed to keep him calm, accessible, listening, so that he would take in the basic information needed for his survival. A lecture, yes...but one I had given a dozen times before over the centuries.

"A ghoul is yours to command, they will rise within the hour, but they are little more than puppets. Useful guards, and if you are alone they will help stave off loneliness, but no self-respecting vampire bothers to make them deliberately. If you make one, I recommend you destroy it immediately." Ghouls brought attention from humans, attacked mindlessly, and were a sign of a weak, incompetent, frightened vampire. "And if you should make a child, accidental or deliberately, it is your duty to care for and train that child." A proud glance down at my child, who remained quiet, taking in and thinking about what I told him.

"That is possibly the easiest instinct to follow as a vampire. If you were a mortal man, and a lady that you had been intimate with approached you years later with a small child that looked far too much like you not to be your son...you would want to protect him, guide him, father him, yes?" Quincy nodded in understanding. Yes, he was a fine man, and would have been a fine father. And those damned fools thought HIM a monster? "You'll find that instinct even stronger for a vampire. Most of us have very few offspring; it takes a certain personality, a certain strength, to be a vampire and not become some insane predatory beast. You'll undoubtedly create a few of those over the years...and you'll have to contain them as I did my Brides or destroy them. Because we find a worthwhile human so very rarely, we cherish our offspring." A small quirk of a smile. "I am now chained to a wagon in a reeking stable, half-starved and angry, watched over by a huddle of idiots, for my own offspring." Offspring that looked guilty. "And I would do so again without hesitation; I would never let them murder you, not without giving them the fight of their lives."

Settling gently beside the coffin, only a slight adjustment for comfort, leaving the humans to think us both still asleep, I waited for my child to ask questions. And he did...but I had to give him some hard answers.

"Friends...how can I convince them that I am not the evil beast they think I am?" The humans that chained us...bah. Understandable, he was so recently human himself that he'd be grasping on to ties to that former life. But I had no answer for that he would like.

"You cannot. They are poisoned against all vampires. My taint is in you, and you are barred from silver and crosses and such. They will use that taint on you to condemn you as a beast, as a clever monster wearing the face of their friend...not matter how unthreatening or even kind you are." Kindness was not a path I was ever meant for, but Quincy was not myself. "For now, when the opportunity presents itself, escape. In a decade or two, perhaps, you might choose to write to them. But protect yourself first and foremost. Humans betray, it is in their nature, and I did not make you to lose you to a pile of dust in a few short years."

"You made me...I can't leave you." Confusion, again. But an excellent question and observation. He was the first of my children to recognize this so quickly; there was a bond chaining him to me, though we'd break it as soon as possible.

"Indeed you cannot. Not yet. It is a...failsafe, of sorts. Were you indeed crazed and violent, you could not leave me to wreak havoc on my domains, could not disobey me. You are under my control until I release you. That, I will do as soon as possible. You are not crazed nor violent, and while I would prefer to keep you at my side and teach you, circumstances prevent." My dry observation pulled a smile to his face, brief and tired but there. 

"A final lesson. In blood comes memories; it is the currency of the soul. Take too much from a human, and you'll find yourself confused. Drink quickly, if you must take a great deal, to reduce the strain. As soon as possible, I will give you my blood. Preferably when we are both well away from this place and those damned humans. Now, I'm little more than a dried-up stick, and cannot give you enough. But I WILL find a way to feed," probably by ripping out the throat of one of those snoring bastards, Harker by choice,"and when you bite me, you will find your freedom from me. Take blood, as much as possible, and with it will come the memories you'll need to keep yourself safe. How to hunt, how to use your abilities, everything I cannot teach you myself. Instead of only enough to free you, I'll have to inundate you with information. Regretful, but I can't see them letting us both walk away." I would prefer to take the time to teach him, watch him grow into his abilities, and there was still a chance that path would be open to us. More likely though we'd be rushed and escaping, and he'd need all the strength and abilities I could give him. I had no wish to leave him barely-taught and weak, alone in a foreign country. If that Dutch bastard destroyed me first, that was far too likely.

He had more questions, but was nearly too tired to ask them, and I needed to marshall what energy I had left. I'd been listening to our unwelcome captors, and they slept deeply. Too deeply for a chill stable with a pair of vampires nearby. The fools.

They'd chained us in blessed iron manacles, bought a coffin but had no body to measure for it, had likely bribed blacksmith, undertaker, and priest to remain quiet. Undoubtedly they had not tested the stew before simply gulping it down. At some point, they'd been given a great dose of laudanum; it was rare here but the town did have an apothecary, and a second helping of stew, likely to "keep them warm in the cold" had put them slowly but securely into a deep sleep.

The humans in my domains had learned well what a vampire could do, and it had likely been only minutes after my foolish, stupid, incompetent captors had left that the town had compared notes on their odd visitors and the wagon hidden in the stable and reached a very accurate conclusion. This was great danger, but also the opportunity to escape that we needed, and a vicious grin bared my teeth in bloodthirsty anticipation.

"We're going to have visitors soon. Stay silent and still, pretend to sleep. Rip their limbs off, bathe in their blood if you can," no, the look of disgust on his face made it clear he was still far from embracing that vampiric glee, "but I will try and destroy them first." A few more minutes and we were quietly arranged with our own little ambush.

The discarded makeshift chains from before led into my nearly-closed coffin...but with no vampire on the end of them. Quincy rested quietly in his own, the chains revealing that one of the manacled vampires rested there. Two sets of chains, two coffins...I hoped they would assume the obvious. There was no shield of any kind for Quincy, but my eyes gleamed as I saw him quietly remove a great knife from inside his boot and a flash of anticipatory violence on his face. There was hope for him yet to be a true vampire!

Starved as I was, I made barely a lump under the pile of old and stinking blankets we'd been wrapped in, even if they carried lanterns. Now...time to wait.

The soft creak of the door. The thunderous pounding of hearts...four. Only four? Easy prey, that. The swishing of boots through the loose straw that littered the floor, the creak and bob of the wagon as a human stepped up, and a second. Backs to me, they prepared to open the first coffin, stakes ready. After all, I was only a pile of blankets...

Quincy's knife flashed up to bury itself in a neck, blood flying in a great arc as my child's eyes flamed in blood lust. Oh, but he was a sight, enraged and powerful in his anger! Blood spattered across his face and body and he lunged for the second man as that one desperately lifted an arm, stake clenched tight, to ward the vampire away. Useless...Quincy would have him.

Where were the other two? In reach! Both of them! Waiting only a step away at the base of the wagon...and I had their coats, jerking them towards me, burying fangs in a throat and squeezing talons through the other before either could respond. Oh, drinking, blood, blood...so wonderful...the second man fell to the stable floor, eyes wild, blood spurting beautifully from the remains of his throat. Quincy should be feasting...

Quincy was not. Dropping my drained prey, I realized that the second man had been thrown from the wagon when Quincy attacked him. Neck broken before or after, he sprawled on the stable floor, out of reach of Quincy's chained arms. The other one was bleeding out rapidly, blood draining from the great gash on his neck and falling uselessly through the gaps in the wagon's boards. Quincy was trying to drain him, but too much was already lost and it was his first prey; I'd had no chance to teach him how to harvest blood without so much waste, where to bite, how to tilt the body to keep the blood inside. Far too much pooled on the floor, far too little went to his stomach!

Still, he looked better...but the commotion outside told me that our dinners had not been alone, and in that commotion I heard Van Helsing's voice raise in anger.

Damn, damn, and damn again. That dutch bastard would ruin everything! The manacles... enough to keep me restrained before, useless with rage and blood running through me. It took effort, but I twisted Quincy's about, breaking him free. Harder than expected, and Van Helsing was coming. A moment of struggle with my own, and I realized that they'd put the strongest pair on me. Yes, I could break them, but the burn of the crosses and the blessing would weaken me. The bastard had planned well.

Quincy first. I would escape later, but my child came first. I grabbed him, yanking him roughly from the body he was savaging on the wagon's floor with one hand, the other opening a great vein in my throat. Rush, rush, hurry...get him out of here, to safety. I hoped to eat Van Helsing himself, rip out his heart and hold it beating in my hands, but that would be after. Soon, soon after...

Quincy's muffled grunts as he pulled blood from me revealed the true level of his starvation. Never had a child gone through the change without being well-fed and cared for. He drank and drank, and I was collapsing...but I could not deny him what he so desperately needed. The room faded, my knees buckled, and my child finished...and grabbed my own chains.

Damn! He wanted to break me free! He was young, he'd only burn his hands and then be caught. "Run, you idiot! Go! I'll follow later!" And I would, but he didn't need to see me tearing apart those that had been his friends and companions only a few days previously.

With a last, despairing look, he threw open a tiny stall window and fled into the night. I felt a bit of pride at the cleverness of my child, avoiding the stable door and those outside.

And then I felt pain, as Van Helsing stood in that doorway and fed my kneeling body with silver bullets. I hoped that Quincy would return to his deathplace, would find a coffin, would thrive. That hope and loss faded into a rage against Van Helsing, and that into blackness. Within moments, I was nothing more than a limp and bloody form being loaded into my coffin.

I would not awaken again until we reached that cursed English Isle.


End file.
